Best laptop to use for Skanect

[We3DU]

Hey guys,

I'm looking for a new laptop to use for 3D scanning people with Skanect.

If you have any suggestions I'd appreciate them.

Right now, a Dell Alienware seems to be a good choice. Any particular models that would be a good second-user bargain?

Many thanks,

Andy

[Nicolas Burrus]

Hi,

Ideally a laptop with an NVidia GTX 570M or higher
(580,590,670,680,770,780,etc.) with more than 1Go of VRAM. These
generally go with quad-core CPUs, so you should be fine on that side.
Note that a 640M is not necessarily faster than a 570M for example,
the two last digits are pretty important. A good hint is to look at
the number of CUDA cores in the NVidia specifications. Anything higher
than 1000 is a good sign.

The Alienware have good models, the Asus Republic of Gamer laptops are
also decent alternatives if you are on a budget.

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[SubdivideMesh]

I use a Asus G53SX with a GTX 560M.  I bought it used for $650, and I get 8-9FPS at High Feedback, All Frame Recording, QVGA off, and Loss Tracking Off.  

With QVGA On, I can get 16fps.  At Medium Feedback, I can get around 25fps.

Be aware that if you're looking to do scanning while unplugged from the wall, performance drops significantly.  The reason is that current battery laptop technology cannot provide the amperage required to the computer to power high intensity GPU & CPU functions. The computer actually derates its performance when you're unplugged, even if you change power settings to stay at high performance on battery.

[Wuping He]

Hi there:

I've got:

16 GB RAM

NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 740M and I can get up to 30fps. 

But after I scanning a person and it will take 10-15 mins to sychronizing the frames, this is way too long.

I've spoken to a technican from 3d systems and he said the only way to solve this problem is to installl a new solid state high drive. Is that right ?

Cheers

Wuping

[Nicolas Burrus]

Hi Wuping,

What do you mean by 10-15min to synchronize the frames? A full offline
reconstruction? Or just the synchronization part after pressing the
stop button? This should be almost instantaneous.

There is a discussion in another thread where disabling Windows
Defender or other antivirus/anti-malware program can give huge
speedups in disk transfers.

[We3DU]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I've had my eye on an Asus Republic of Gamer J750JX with 20Gig of RAM and a 1TB SSD on Fleabay. looks like that would fit the bill.

BTW. I seem to be getting pretty good performance from my Mid-2012 MacBook Pro. It's rather pedestrian for most other tasks but seem to maintain between 17 and 25 fps scanning. Reconstruction is a tad on the slow side at high quality but I find high quality gives more problems than it solves ( skinny arms and ankles etc ) when scanning people.